Central United Church - Sermon - March 21, 2004 evening

“THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS”
Rev. James Clubine
Sunday, March 21, 2004 at 7:00 p.m.
Ecumenical Lenten Service

Matthew 5:1-12

Matthew 5:6-7
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Introduction

A news article this past week from the Reuters news service under the title ‘Reach Out And Date Someone’ told of how phone technology can now help a person close in on a mate. The article reported;

“Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston say they have developed a new technology that will turn cell phones into matchmaking devices. Singles looking to become romantically involved with someone may soon be able to subscribe to a service that stores a personal profile and information on what they want most from a partner directly on a cell phone. That information would be sent out over a wireless network, so when there are enough similarities between two people, and they happen to be in close proximity, the service tells their cell phones to communicate with each other.”

It is interesting to note the innovations we humans invent in order to fulfill the longings and desires of our hearts. It was Daniel Boone who said; All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse and a good wife. I guess we would add to that list today ‘and a good cell phone’ because all these can be found through on-line phone services.

I invite you to reflect with me on the one beatitude in which Jesus directs our attention to these longings and desires that we all possess as humans. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Or as the Good News Bible translates; “Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires.” So tell me, what are you really hungry and thirst for? Oh, I know all the politically correct answers – world peace, end of poverty and the elimination of disease. What I invite you to think about is the answer you would write on the notebook of you mind where no one else could see to the answer – what are you passionate for, what will you chase after because you are really hungry and thirty for it?

For Jesus said “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” It is my guess that we usually do not connect ‘Jesus, happiness and passion’ together in a positive way – yet here it is, in the Bible – of all places!

I wonder if you find as I do that it is quite often the case that our passions and desires sometimes seem to lead us to pursue things that are characteristically just out of reach no matter how hard we go after them. That is, the thing we are chasing and want seems always to allude us just when we have it in our grasp. Take for example career objectives, you see a position you want, or designation to achieve or a business goal and after you achieve it you discover that the getting there was way more energizing than having arrived. I recall the day of my ordination and the accompanying celebration – and the discovery the day after that ordination had not ushered me on to some new plane of living euphoria. I had the distinct sense that if I didn’t get focused on some new objective I was going to become terribly bored.

Disappointment may set in and it may seem that pursing the desires of our hearts in not all that it is cracked up to be. We give up on being passionate about life – instead we think it is better to be reasonable about things – stop foolish daydreaming or hoping for stuff that can never happen. Get you passions in check so that you will not be too disappointed by the highs and lows of life.

But Jesus says blessed are those who hunger and thirst. I suggest to you that Jesus’ assertion implies that we ought not give up on being passionate about life and shutting down the desires of the heart, in fact happiness in this beatitude hinges on our being hungry and thirsty for something.

Sometimes it is the nature of things that the very thing we are hungry and thirsty for cannot be obtained by making it the object of our desire. Happiness, it seems to me, is one of those things. Is this not what Jesus implies in these beatitudes? Jesus says ‘blessed are those who … “implying that happiness or being blessed is found while engaged in other things. It is not found by saying – ‘I am going to get me some happiness.” There is no “Blessed are those who gets for themselves a stack of happiness.” Author and humorist Sam Levenson put it this way; “Happiness is a by-product. You cannot pursue it by itself.”

So hear again Jesus’ words and listen for what he invites us to be passionate in life about - Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Permit me this paraphrase; “Happy are those who are passionate for what is right and good and just.”

Now how does that sound to you? Happiness is found in being passionate for righteousness. It is my experience that there is a certain kind of uneasiness we have about being too good. Passion for righteousness sounds more like an oxymoron to us than that it does a promise for happiness. It is only the domain of the super-pious.

We tend to equate righteousness with austerity, drab clothes, little enjoyment and being flat out odd and boring. Life being good seems to imply a life of denying passion. You may recall lectures by your parents when it seemed that doing the right things was always the exact opposite of doing what was fun and enjoyable. And so hungering and thirsting for what is good seems a very strange vocabulary indeed.

In point of fact we tend not to trust people who appear too good to us – it seems that they lack “real life experience,” so to speak. It was Mark Twain who observed: “I have not a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming vices.”

Is it possible that the problem we may be having with Jesus statement that puts human passion and righteousness together is our view of righteousness? Take, for example, this idea of righteousness being rather drab and examine it against the world that God has created. God who created the vast colour of flowers in the world and declared it good is anything but drab. It is our imagination that lacks not God’s!

Further, let me ask you, do you need to experience doing wrong to have “real life experience?” That is to say – is vice all that it is cracked up to be? Churches that follow the ‘Revised Common Lectionary” in their pattern of reading scripture read the parable of the prodigal son today. Let me ask, do you think it necessary to go away and live in the slop of life for while in order to discover that righteousness is a good thing? Do you need to crash and burn to know that this is an undesirable experience? So perhaps we need to adjust our ideas of what righteousness looks like when it is being lived out.

Another challenge I have hearing Jesus invitation to experience happiness in passion for righteousness is that when I follow the desire of my heart I seem to be lead away from righteousness rather than towards it. And so we become wary of passion because we seem to end up in dead end places. The reasonable course would be to shut down desire and pray ‘Lord take these desires away for they only lead me astray.’

About this fear we have of our passion – admittedly a fear rooted in many sad experiences – I invite you to consider that identifying our passion as the problem is to suggest that God made an error in creating us with them. Jesus calls us to be passionate – to find the joy of the purposes of the passions God gave us in creating us. Jesus’ invitation is not to shut them down but rather to excite them for the pursuit of righteousness.

It is interesting to observe that ‘God in not the one who makes birdcages.’ It seems to me that the human response to the apparent danger of our passion is to make cages for them. Jesus appears to say that we ought to turn them loose in the passionate pursuit of righteousness. It is worth noting at this point what God said of David. To say that David lived passionately would to be understatement, and yet God called him a man after his own heart.

I would also suggest that another reason we fear passion is the limits of our sin scarred human imagination. Simone Weil – Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring: real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating. Do you not find this the case that wrong looks so inviting and is in fact so incredibly unfulfilling when we get there? On the other side in our imagination doing good looks dull, boring and predictable and in actuality when we engage to reach for some good we find it intoxicating and fulfilling.

We have glimpses of that often in our living. Consistently I hear people say that when they undertake to do some good for a friend in need they receive blessing beyond the blessing they seek to bestow. And when people tell me about regrets in life I have yet to hear anyone say they regretted doing the right, good or just thing.

A brief aside – sometimes living passionately for what is right, good and just can lead to a rigid-ness about life that can have the sound of being judgmental and unkind which in turn discourages others from the joy of this pursuit. I wonder if this could be part of the reason Jesus follows this beatitude with “Blessed are the merciful.” “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” is the attitude we take when viewing our own behaviour, “Blessed are the merciful” is the attitude to take when looking to the behaviour of others. Peter Marshall put it this way: Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change. And when we are right, make us easy to live with.

Conclusion

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. This word filled has the idea of filled with all you need. To pursue this with passion will enliven all other passions in their intended place. It brings to mind another of Jesus sayings – Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.

In the final analysis, to be passionate for righteousness is to be passionate for this One who gave his life for us. If we make anything or anyone else the ultimate object of our passion we sell ourselves as humans short. The righteousness that is in Christ is the only thing with the magnitude to satisfy the fullness of what the human heart can desire.

Philip Yancy “Rumours of Another World” (p 37-8)

“My natural desires, I now see, are pointers to the supernatural, not obstacles. In a world fallen far from its original design, God wants us to receive them as gifts and not possessions, tokens of love and not loves in themselves. I have learned to pray, following Augustine, not that my desires be quenched or taken away, rather that my scattered longings be gathered together in their Source, who alone can order them.

May you experience all the fullness of the blessings in hungering and thirsting for the righteous One!

	Sermon: "Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness"

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